


Aftermath

by Indecent_Proposals (Ka_she_who_lurks)



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime, Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015)
Genre: Brainwashing, Breeding, Childhood Trauma, Dirty Talk, Discussion of Abortion, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Forced Pregnancy, Forced Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, I ended with plot with some porn, I was going for porn with some plot, Impregnation, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Mindfuck, Possessive Behavior, Rape Recovery, Recovery, Sexual Slavery, Why is this mostly fluff?, fucked while brainwashed, off-screen legal revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-26 00:55:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14989244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ka_she_who_lurks/pseuds/Indecent_Proposals
Summary: Steeljaw is the sort that just takes what he wants, whatever that may be.Astraea has issues, and finally finds out what happened to her mother, who she long assumed was dead.





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> As I was wondering how I could make "Steeljaw tops a submissive Strongarm" work for me, I thought of brainwashing.  
> So I thought: Let's go make a kinky brainwashed fetish fic with some dark undertones, it'll be fun! 
> 
> The next thing I knew, I'm staring at several pages of a survivor and aftermath story full of hope and fluff instead where the scars are healing. With a touch of kink.

_"Leave us." Steeljaw said, his eyes on the unconscious femme. She was showing signs of starting to wake up._  
_The door closed, and he slowly ran a hand over her plating._

 _Strong, beautiful, and not the kind of known face that meant anyone other than her friends would miss her._  
_Family as well, if she had one, but with how many sparks had come from the Well, that was pretty unlikely._

 _His hand traveled from her face, to her chest, to her waist. There was something about her that had caught his attention, that meant he had to have her._  
_And would you look at that, with his resources and his daring flaunting of the rules everyone else seemed to be obliged to follow, he could._

_He bent down to kiss those lips, and like it was a sign, her eyes shuttered open._

_"Hello there, sweetspark." he said with a smile._  
_She focused on him._

 _"Your purpose in life is to please me. Do you understand?"_  
_She nodded, still a bit dazed from the mixture affecting her mind._

_"You were made for me. You had no life before this."_

_He went to sit down in the comfortable chair next to the low table she was on._  
_"You are willing and eager to please me, to bear my children, to belong to me in every way possible. I am your master, and you are my property. Do you understand?"_

_"Yes." she said, sitting up carefully._

_"Then how about you come over here, get on your knees, and suck my spike until it's hard?"_  
_She did as he was told and knelt before him._

_"And you answer to me with saying "yes, master.", understood?"_

_"Yes, master." she said, and she wrapped those pretty lips around his spike._  
_She was clumsy, an obvious beginner, and he had to push her helmet a couple of times to ensure she took him in deep enough, but he got hard quickly under her attentions anyway._

_"Good. Now lie back on that table, spread your legs, and open your panel."_

_"Yes, master."_

_Like most things about her, and so few things in his life, her valve was neat and clean and looked to be unused._  
_It took some effort to work the head of his spike into the tight folds, but once he was, her valve fit around his spike most wonderfully._  
_Careless of her comfort, he thrust forward, and burst through what could only be a seal._  
_His eyes widened, and he came._

_"You belong only to me." he said, near reverently, and stroked her face._

_"Yes, master." she said._

 

After they both had calmed down somewhat, Catapult approached Astraea, embraced her and held tight.  
Astraea raised her hand and covered one of Catapult's, trying to reciprocate in one of the ways that she had found she could.  
Astraea knew she should apologize, but the words clogged in her throat.

Instead, she brought Catapults fingers to her lips, and then laid her lovers slimmer hand against her cheek.

"I know you were not at fault." she eventually managed to choke out.

It wasn't "I'm sorry.", it wasn't "It was my fault.", it wasn't "I shouldn't have blown up at you over such a small thing.", but it was the best Astraea could do.

Catapult didn't immediately reply, not having an answer at the ready that wouldn't make things worse. That wouldn't set Astraea off in some way.  
Astraea knew that, knew she was a mess of tripwires and snares that was hard to live with at the best of times... but that didn't help fixing it.  
She wasn't very good at handling all the emotions that came with caring about another person, and she could hardly stand not doing something when something was wrong, but there wasn't anything much she could do.

"I love you." Catapult said, eventually, and wasn't that the poison sting in the whole issue. Like Catapult leaving herself vulnerable to Astraea wasn't exactly the thing that pissed Astraea off the most.

"I love you too." Astraea said, and felt as if she was confessing to some heinous crime.

 

_An image: A white-and-blue femme in front of a camera, seated on the ground. Her eyes are a little blank._

_"Heya, sweetspark"_

_"Hello, master"_

_"Won't you spread those legs for me? That's right, now open that panel and show me your valve. Good, good. Finger yourself a little. Now, who do you belong to?"_

_"You, master"_

_"That's right. Now, tell me how you came to be."_

_"I was built for your pleasure, master."_

_"That's so nice, sweetspark. What is your purpose?"_

_"My purpose is to please you."_

_"True. Now come over here and please me with your mouth. If you're good, I'll spike you afterwards."_

 

Astraea, still covered in rock dust from her job, walked through the bad part of town that the apartment she shared with Catapult bordered on.

Since the Autobot victory, a majority of those that had the more obvious Decepticon coding, found themselves most accepted in the bad part of town.

She walked past a stall full of merchandise of an erotic nature.

"Hey, you there, you're the one who's got a cute little Autobot femme for a lover, don't you? Check these out. Wouldn't she look nice in them? Wouldn't you want to keep her like that?"

For a moment, an image of Catapult flashed across her mind - done up all pretty in binds and chains, her lively smile blanked out to something servile - and felt a wave of nausea.

She hid it with a clenched jaw. "No. I would not."

"Aw, come on, your old man wasn't such a stick in the mud."

Astraea lashed out, and held up the salesmech by his throat. "My father is a piece of trash not fit to be fed to scraplets."

The salesmech struggled, trying to get his neck free of her clawed hand, but she was stronger, and in this area, no-one would mind if she squeezed as she wanted to.

No-one, except for... Astraea wanted sparking wires and spilled energon, but, with a snarl, she opened her hand and dropped the odious creature.

The things you did for love.

The things you didn't do for love.

She scoffed.

 

_An image: A white-and-blue femme, laying on some kind of board, her legs tied down spread, her modesty panel missing, her valve rhythmically being pumped into by an artificial spike attached to a mostly unseen machine. Her arms are tied above her head, forcing her torso to arch off of the board._

_"There. You're strapped down nice and tight. Now sweetspark, tell me how you lost your seals."_

_"I woke up as I was gifted to you master, and then you ordered me to suck you hard and then you spiked me."_

_"And did you enjoy it?"_

_"It pleased you master."_

_"Yes it did. And you enjoy pleasing me, don't you, Sweetspark?"_

_"Yes master."_

_"So did you enjoy being spiked by me?"_

_"Yes master."_

 

Once she was home, she was careful not to slam the door shut. (One more thing on her. A Decepticon with less criminal connections - even on a shitty paycheck like hers - had no problem getting the slightly fancier places, with automatic sliding doors and the like for a living place. The kind of places that asked for a minor background check, and the kind of places that a nice Autobot femme like Catapult was used to. Catapult said she didn't mind. Catapult didn't mind a lot of things she'd given up because of Astraea.)

"I need to find out about my mother."

"Ah. Alright? I thought she was dead?"

"Father killed her and dumped her body somewhere around the time I was between my second and third frame. After he noticed she was starting to break through the brainwashing."

"What? That's terrible! Astraea, are you alright?"

Another thing she didn't get. Why wouldn't she be fine? She wasn't brainwashed, used and murdered.  
But she wasn't fine, was she. Not in the finicky emotion way Catapult likely meant. In that way, she was a K-class with an ultra-sensitive ignition.

"I... he claimed to love her. That he loved no other femme like her. He didn't even know what her name was. Just saw a pretty femme one day and took her and..." her body shook, and it felt as if her lover's arms were the only thing that kept her from falling to pieces.  
"Why? I don't understand! It's not... that's not how...! Love doesn't work like that!"

"It doesn't. Astraea, you're right. He wouldn't have done that if he loved her. That was... possessiveness and lust."

"Isn't that a part of love, though." Astraea said, dark and tense.

"It can be, but it isn't always. If it was love, he'd have cared more for what she needed and what was good for her than what he wanted out of her."

Astraea curved in on herself, and rested her head on Catapult's shoulder.  
"What if I find out I'm nothing like her, Catty." she whispered. "What if I find out I'm like him?"

"Children aren't exactly like their parents either way. And I can tell you right now, Astra, you are not like your father."

"I need to punch something. Or shoot something. Anything. Burn something down, and I don't care what."

"Can you last a ride to the garbage dump?"

"If you're with me."

"Always."

 

_An image: A white-and-blue femme, on her knees, filmed from above, likely from the perspective of the owner of the bare metal thighs she sits between. A hint of the knees of the person holding the camera indicates a cyan-blue-gray paintjob. The spike, only partly visible due to being in the femme's mouth, is a dark anthracite colour, with streaks of that same cyan-blue-gray. The eyes of the femme are a little blank._

_"What is your goal in life, Sweetspark?"_

_"Am I allowed to stop sucking your spike to answer master?"_

_"As long as you continue to suck it right after."_

_"Very well. My goal in life is to please you, master."_

_"And what would please me, Sweetspark?"_

_"By your words, for me to pleasure you sexually, for me to bear your children, for me to raise your children, and for me to maintain your house for you if I am not occupied with the first three."_

_"And are you willing to do this, Sweetspark?"_

_"Would it please you, master?"_

_"Yes. Yes it would."_

_"Then I am willing."_

 

"So we don't know her name."

"No."

"Any other defining characteristics?"

"Femme. Autobot. Kaonite. Blue optics. Blue in her paintjob. I think maybe white too? Had some form of combat training. Knew a lot about laws and rules. Most like herself when father wasn't around. My younger sister looks like her the most, framewise. That's... that's about it. Admired Arcee? But a lot of Autobot femmes do that. Uhm... didn't care all that much for sweets?"

As always when confused, stressed or grieving, Astraea got angry. Her hand slapped against her forehead. "Why don't I know more!"

"We could do a CNA test."

"A CNA test?" Astraea said dumbly, the thought not having occurred to her before.

"Yeah, you know, see if there are any partial matches in the system that aren't your, uh, transfluid donor and related? Uhm..."  
Catapult looked at Astraea to check if she hadn't stiffened up at the term, and saw a wide, vicious grin instead.

"Transfluid donor, huh? Nice. So any matches that aren't related to him..."

"Would be, if not your mother herself, probably related to your mother, and as such..." Catapult added excitedly.

"An excellent way to find out who she was! Not to mention that the main reason to stay out of databases like that would be to ensure that they haven't got an angle to arrest him, which I don't care about..."

Astraea slapped her hands on the table. "Alright! Let's do this!"

 

_An image: A white-and-blue femme, on her hands and knees, filmed from behind as she is brutally taken by a mostly obscured individual. Paintcolours indicate that it is the same person as in the previous vid._

_"Hey, Sweetspark. Do you love me?"_

_"How do you mean, master?"_

_"You know, want me, need me, care for me, adore me, desire me."_

_"Would it please you if I did?"_

_"Y-yes."_

_"Then I want you and care for you, master. My purpose in life is to please you, and so I need you."_

_"Say it."_

_"Say what master?"_

_"Say that you love me."_

_"Would it please you, master?" "Sweetspark"'s facial expression is somewhat distant._

_"Yes, frag it! It would please me if you loved me!"_

_It might me an artefact of damaged vid data, but for a moment, "Sweetspark"'s expression appears angry._

_"Then I love you, master."_

_"Master" comes with a shout._

 

A simple CNA test. Right.  
No fuss no muss. Right.  
Give off a sample, wait an hour, and done. Right?  
The worst that could happen was some awkward questions about some outstanding murder case. Right?  
Right?  
Something like that didn't end with a simple no-fame post-war Decepticon femme sitting in an office in front of the one and only Ultra Magnus, war hero, one of the elite warriors of the Autobot army, and the one whose dedication to law and justice was so fierce he had wrangled the mess of mass murdering maniacs that was the wreckers into something that actually resembled a more normal Autobot combat squad.  
Right?  
It was a simple procedure that some people did for fun, and as such, the current situation was completely illogical.  
Logic, common sense, and all the ways life usually worked didn't seem to change the fact that she was, in fact, sitting in front of Ultra Magnus.

Astraea was not a femme easily intimidated. Her youth had involved some of the worst surviving cons around, and she had, in fact, participated in some skirmishes between cons and bots that didn't quite realize what "end of the war" was supposed to mean, and kicked quite a lot of aft while doing so.

Ultra Magnus, however, was on a different level entirely.  
His name was often preceded by a "the", and you had to live under a rock to not realize who he was.  
He seemed to frown, and slowly, glacially, steepled his fingers.

Astraea stoically remained seated upright under his gaze. It was, quite possibly, the most impressive accomplishment in her life.

"Decepticon Astraea."

She inclined her head. "That is me."

"What is your purpose in applying for a CNA testing?"

"To find out who my mother was. Sir."

"You are aware that the supplied information could result in the arrest of your father, or otherwise a close relative of his?"

Astraea looked him in the eye. "I have, in fact, prepared for that situation."

She pulled a stack of data sticks out of her subspace, and laid them out in an evenly spaced row in the middle of the desk.  
"This one has information on his money laundering schemes, shell companies, smuggling operations, and leads to several robberies."

"This one contains all I could find on a series of scams, connections to other sketchy businesses, and trade in stolen goods."

"This one contains all I found out about what he did to my mother, including a list of possible contacts who might have provided him with the resources he used."

"This one is mostly blackmail, extortion, pyramid schemes, and some other things I found."

Everything, of course, lacked the information that implicated her little sister, or traces that would lead to her older brother, but it was plenty to bring her father and his little empire down.  
And a fair chunk of Thunderhoof's, of course, considering how closely they were allied, but that was acceptable collateral damage, to Astraea's mind.

"Would that result in the definite arrest of my father, instead of the merely possible?"

"If the information is what you said it is, and viable proof, then yes."

"Good. Now, care to explain why I am here? As far as I know, I haven't committed anything worthy of arrest." Not recently, anyway, and not by the great Ultra Magnus, at least.

Ultra Magnus exuded a stoic silence that seemed to blanket the entire room.  
"You do not know your mother's name or identity."

"Fa... my conceiver didn't bother learning it after he kidnapped her, and she was unable to remember it through the brainwashing."

"I have one daughter, Decepticon Astraea. She disappeared thirty years and three months ago.  
She was found again, thirteen years, ten months and twenty-one days later, with no memory of what happened, signs of illegal mnemnosurgery, signs of having given birth at least once on her frame, and in an early stage of carrying a newspark that she, after some deliberation and despite the risk, decided to abort.  
Your CNA coding was a partial match with hers, and thus mine, which is why you were sent to me."

"She's alive? I thought my sire had her killed her after she started to break through the brainwash... you're my grandfather?!"  
Astraea, like any reasonably intelligent Decepticon, froze at the realization of being in any way related to the living legend that was Ultra Magnus.

But she had come here for a reason. "What, what is her name?"

Ultra Magnus pulled open a drawer labeled "personal affects" and lifted out a picture that he showed to Astraea.

It was the image of a young officer of the law, a femme with a frame like Retrofit's, if a bit blockier in the edges and more rounded where Retrofit had more oval-like shapes, with a crisp white-and-blue paintjob, and a pale-yellow head crest.  
"Her name is Strongarm. I have commed her about your existence." Ultra Magnus said, as Astraea tried to burn the femme's face into her mind, and to connect the features to half-faded memories.

"I'm not the only one. I mean, there are three more. My older brother ran away shortly after my conceiver got rid of mother, my younger sister tries to ignore the whole business, and my younger brother... he doesn't remember her, or care how we came to be."

Not to mention that Phantomjaw was just like their father in just about every way, inside and out, except maybe the paintjob and a little bit about the face. Not enough to notice, not unless you did a side-by-side comparison. Phantomjaw had mother's cheekbones.  
Retrofit had most of mother's everything, beyond her blue being more teal, and overall being a little more pointy and sleek and having upswept audios, instead of downward angled ones.  
Astraea herself had... being a femme. The number of limbs. The lips. The general structure of the chest. The upswept angle they both held their doorwings at. A bit of the side structure of the hips. The darker-than-her-father's blue of her paintjob, in shade, at least. The hue was far more like that of her father. A little bit about the eyes, perhaps, but she knew she was reaching now.

They could stand all next to each other, and the only two people who'd look related to each other would be mother and Retrofit. And father and Phantomjaw.  
And then there was Astraea.

Conduit had about the same colours as her and probably looked like her, but she didn't remember him well enough to know for sure.

"Strongarm will be informed."

Astraea nodded.  
"As far as I know, her brainwashing was being injected with a substance that suppressed her mind and used suggestions and orders to craft a new shell personality that she would have to comply with. I assume her not remembering... anything would be a result from the mnemosurgery you mentioned. It hasn't been reversed?"

"If it had been, we would have captured your father years ago. But trying to reverse something without knowing what had been done would risk permanent damage to her mind, which would be sub-optimal."

"There's only five or six or so people with known memnosurgery skills with criminal connections on Cybertron anyway. And only three of those are any kind of reliable. Wait. Two of those wouldn't have been willing to work for my conceiver during that time period, due to him being far less powerful at the time."

"You know what mnemosurgeon is most likely to have worked on my daughter."

"I suspect it's Psychobat. And I'm not quite sure he has a license. Better him than Trepan, though. Or Sunder. There'd be nothing of mother left if it had been Sunder who'd gotten their needles in her. Anyway, it's probably not Vampire because he likes to work under the protection of corrupt law enforcement, and probably not Trepan, because Trepan is expensive. And the spider wasn't active at the time."

Ultra Magnus wrote something on a datapad and sent it. "Psychobat will be arrested, as will the rest, in due time, once sufficient evidence has been found."

"You might want to take a squad of reinforcements if you go after Sunder. The sort you send after war criminals with sigma abilities. He's not an easy opponent. And he has some sort of flunky. Roid or something."

"Thank you. Your co-operation and supplying of information is appreciated."

Astraea nodded again. See, this was the level of positive emotional interaction she wasn't total crap at. If more Autobots were like Ultra Magnus, she'd have no problem hanging out with a bunch of them that weren't Catapult, and wow, wasn't that a weird sentence to think.

"Keep in mind that I will be doing a background check before Strongarm will be exposed to you." Of course, this was still the Ultra Magnus.

"I was in a couple of street brawls I was never arrested for. I nicked an energon cube once that looked like it was one of those free samples. I did some train surfing."  
And, of course, she had had access to illegal weaponry and explosives, and trained with them, but basically everyone did that, so that didn't count.  
Also, there was probably some stuff that counted as breaking and entering? Maybe some assault? And theft, if you looked at it the Autobot way, though it wasn't theft by Decepticon law.  
She did set a bar on fire once too, but she was drunk at the time, so that definitely didn't count. And some light vandalism and inciting to riot, probably, but she did that far less since she met Catapult.

"This will be checked, and you will be fined accordingly."

Astraea nodded. The Ultra Magnus not being one for nepotism was about the least surprising thing of everything that had happened today.

"Do you think she'll want to see me?"

"I do not know. I will leave that up to her to decide."

"I don't take after her at all, do I."

"I do not know you well enough to make that judgement. I am, however, under the impression that you do take somewhat after her sire. What is your opinion of explosions?"

"What? Well. I like explosions?" Astraea said, uncertain what the line of questioning was about. Was she about to be arrested for a series of explosive misdemeanors?

Ultra Magnus nodded tiredly. "You do take after your grandsire in a noticeable way."

 

_An image: A white-and-blue femme on her back, modesty panel missing, valve fully visible to the camera, increased curvature of the torso, her valve carefully being entered and stimulated by clawed hands of a dark gray colouration with a matte finish. Her expression is more distant than blank._

_"Name yourself, Sweetspark."_

_"Name myself? What should I name myself?"_

_"Everything I call you."_

_"Then I am Sweetspark, spikeslut, pet, your whore, your breederbitch, your spikesleeve, your transfluid dump, the best tittyfuck you've ever had, your personal sexslave, your darling, your pleasurebot, your property, your finest fucktoy, your honey, your sister, your energongoodie, an easy lay, your favorite fuckhole, your housemaid and your living sextoy._

_"That's right. Why is your belly so swollen, Sweetspark?"_

_"I am carrying your child in it, Master."_

_"Is it your first?"_

_"No, master."_

_"Will it be your last?"_

_"No, master."_

_"Do you remember anything before you were given to me?"_

_"No, master."_

_"Do you remember anyone other than me or the little family we're making together?"_

_"No, master."_

_"Who do you belong to."_

_"You, master."_

_"Say it in full."_

_"I belong to you, master."_

_Transfluid spurts from below the position of the camera onto the femme. The breathing of the cameramech is notably laboured._

 

Once Astraea was outside and Catapult noticed, Catapult ran towards her, and refrained from hugging Astraea, which Astraea was grateful for.  
Few things were as hideously embarrassing as being hugged where someone might see.

"And, did you find out anything?"

"My mother's name is Strongarm. She's alive. My transfluid donor had her memory suppressed with mnemosurgery. I met my grandcarrier today."

"That's great news, Astra! Though probably a bit much to find out at once, right?"

"Yes. It's... more than I hoped, and probably a bit more in one go than is entirely comfortable. Fortunately, my grandcarrier is a reasonable and easygoing sort of person, if a bit strict, and exactly as much as a hardliner when it comes to the law as rumoured."

She reached out to Catapult, and let their fingers intertwine. She still wasn't entirely at ease with the intimacy and vulnerability implied by the gesture of holding hands, but the closeness to Catapult made up for it.

"Oh? And who is this grandcarrier then? Someone I know of?"

"I think so. It's Ultra Magnus."

Catapult's face went blank. "Ah. Ultra Magnus. And you would describe him as reasonable and easygoing?"

"He treated me fairly and his emotional responses were understandable."

"I don't think he has much in the way of emotional responses if any of the rumours are true, Astra."

"Exactly! That's what's so great about him!"

"Ah. I see. And all this time I thought it was because of your tragic and deprived youth. But it turns out you take after your grandcarrier!" Catapult teased.

"He said I take after my grandsire."

"And who is that?"

"Someone who likes explosions, apparently."

"Hmm. That could be a lot of people."

"I know my mother's name and face and I have a grandcarrier that I have met face to face. Since the last hour."

"True. That sounds like a whole lot of things to process. Want to eat a bucket full of energon goodie ice-cream with iron filings and the coal wafers while watching dumb movies with me?"

"That sounds about perfect. Yes."

 

Psychobat did, indeed, not have a license. He did, however, have all the mods to do some mnemosurgery.  
That, in itself, wasn't illegal, and no charges would have held against him if he kept his mouth shut, as even a mnemosurgeon - who typically teeter-tottered on the edge of their own sanity on a good day - knew how to do.  
But with Ultra Magnus standing there, glaring down on Psychobat with his arms folded and his foot tapping and getting nearly imperceptibly impatient, Psychobat sang like a little birdy.

 

Strongarm looked at Ratchet with a raised eyebrow. "And what will this helmet exam tell you that the convicts confession did not?"

"Whether he lied or not." Ratchet said dryly.

"Ah. Good point. I am aware that it is very reasonable to have such an exam, but..."

"Yeah, yeah, you don't like people fiddling about with your head, and with good reason not to." Ratchet said tiredly as he picked up an UV-light.

Strongarm tried to relax the best she could. This was Ratchet. She trusted Ratchet.

"So would you like your memories back?" Ratchet said brusquely.

"I... Yes. I want to know what happened. And, this femme, my daughter, she came to look for me and gave dad everything he needed to convict that monster twenty times over. I want to know who she is to me. But... I'm afraid to get it all back in one rush. Won't I be overwhelmed by the trauma of those memories?"

"Not really. It was, as mnemosurgery goes, not a deep alteration. Remember all the scrap you had to work through right after, even if you didn't remember a thing?"

"Yes." Strongarm said curtly, folding her arms. She wasn't exactly proud of how she acted in that period, no matter how understandable her occasionally rather extreme responses and recurring unreliable mental energy levels had been.

"The spark remembers even if the brain module doesn't. You retained your emotions even if you didn't have access to your memories. It would have gone easier for you if you had because you would have known what you were up against, but, you did work through a large chunk of all that trauma. Now you'll just learn what it was. You probably won't be happy about it, and you'll likely be off kilter for a couple of days, but you won't be any more traumatized than you already were."

"Then, yes. I would like to remember as soon as possible."

"Alright. This seems to be in order. This needle mark scarring here does indeed seem to be directed to your temporal lobe, and the neural bridge he damaged would be about..."  
CLANG! "here." Ratchet said calmly as he put down the wrench.

"OW! What the! Ratchet!" Strongarm said as she clung to her poor, hurting helmet.

"That should activate the repair-nanites in that area, which means that tomorrow, you'll wake up with access to knowing what happened those years you were gone."

"Oh." Strongarm said, suddenly feeling apprehensive, and planning to study some lawbooks for as long as possible tonight so she could put off the moment she woke up in the morning.

"And give your mind some rest. That means no studying, no vids, just take it easy the rest of the day and go to bed early. And don't overstrain yourself for a week or so afterwards either."

"Oh." Strongarm said, a sinking feeling in her tanks. "Thank you Ratchet. I will do that."

"And Strongarm? When you remember and have calmed down a bit? Contact your family and friends. It'll help you settle."

 

Astraea was rigid and prideful in her stance, which meant she was extremely nervous.   
Catapult laid a hand on the lower back of her girlfriend as they stood before the building where Strongarm had agreed to meet them.  
"Shall we go in?" she said gently, a slight smile on her lips.  
Astraea nodded stiffly, squared her shoulders, and stepped forward into the future, Catapult at her side.

**Author's Note:**

> Steeljaw wasn't home all the time, and even then, he wasn't eager to go every moment of every hour.  
> So Strongarm, or Strongarm's body, or something like that, had time to... not exactly think, not exactly get in touch with her feelings and instincts, but something like that.  
> Mostly, the amalgam of orders and remnants-of-Strongarm was in stand-by mode. Too numb to do anything much of anything that wasn't desired of her by her master.
> 
> The crying of a child. The reaching out of little claws.  
>  _Oh. You're a prisoner here too, huh?_  
>  One blunt fingered hand reached towards a little clawed one.  
> One tiny hand curled around a blunt finger.  
> A flicker of something beyond the numbness in blue eyes.
> 
>  
> 
> "I barely have anything in common with you. "  
> "But you're the one that looked for me."
> 
>  
> 
> Unused sentence:  
> An underage witness of the crime-during-the-fact.


End file.
